National Review Myth Buster #3: Independent from TFA

Our National Review of Teacher Prep is well under way.We've been working hard to coordinate with
colleges, universities and other state-based stakeholders to advance the
review.In spite of this outreach, myths
and misrepresentations about our standards, methodology and motivations
persist. In this series of PDQ posts, we are setting the record straight.Earlier this week, we addressed how
institutions would not be penalized in our review for complying with faulty
state laws or regs.Yesterday we
addressed the financial support for the Review.Today's post tackles claims that Teach For America is indirectly funding
the Review to accumulate evidence needed to end formal teacher preparation as
we know it.

Some critics of the review have suggested that the review is
being funded— directly or indirectly— by Teach For America, but as we showed
in yesterday's post, there is no evidence to support the assertion.So why do some people still think that we are
in the pocket of TFA?It is absolutely
true that NCTQ has been a vocal and strong supporter of TFA because it recruits
smart, talented young people into the profession, many of whom go on to making
tremendous contributions to the broader cause of education reform. In fact, we
have a number of TFA alum on our staff.

Here's where we stand on Teach For America.Within the current context of so much
mediocre preparation of teachers in the United States, we believe that inviting
Teach For America into school districts is a very smart move.But note our conditional support.

In fact, we strongly believe in traditional teacher
preparation. If it were delivered well systematically, no school district would
want to rely on untrained novice teachers, no matter how smart or talented they
were.To achieve that transformation,
traditional teacher preparation needs to take a page from TFA's playbook,
becoming more selective about who can become a teacher.While it would be impractical to be as
selective as TFA given the nation's need to hire 240,000 new teachers each
year, the bar must be raised.Currently
it is easier to become a teacher in most states than it is to academically
qualify to play college football.

Bottom line:The
source of our support is both transparent and diverse. We have a vision for
teacher preparation that would ultimately make Teach For America and all fast
track alternate routes obsolete. We imagine that is not a goal shared by Teach
For America.